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Haverkamp under new investigation

Becker County Deputy Tim Haverkamp has been sentenced on the misdemeanor hunting complaint against him and is back on duty, but a DNR search warrant for his home was completed Thursday and filed in Clay County Court today, involving a separate Department of Natural Resources investigation.

Haverkamp was charged in Becker County District Court March 20 with using artificial light to locate animals; using a hunting license issued to another person; and hunting deer without a license, all misdemeanors.

He spent five months on paid administrative leave -- from Oct. 31 to March 30 -- while the Oct. 19 incident was being investigated.

Haverkamp, 42, of rural Detroit Lakes, pled guilty by plea petition April 18 to the license restrictions charge. The other charges were dismissed.

He was sentenced by District Judge Mark Hansen to immediately pay a $300 fine plus $82 in court fees. He received a stayed 30-day jail sentence and was ordered to have no same or similar offense within the next year.

At a midnight stakeout Oct. 20, a DNR officer caught him while on duty coming back for a buck he had shot the night before on private land off County Road 15, Frazee, according to court records.

The license restrictions charge was filed because the DNR officer's investigation allegedly revealed that Haverkamp had used hunting licenses issued in his son-in-law's name to harvest more deer than he legally should have, according to court records.

He did not return a message left for him last week at the sheriff's department.

Haverkamp joined the sheriff's department as a part-timer in April of 2001 and has been a full-time deputy since August 2001.

From March 30 until two weeks ago, Haverkamp was assigned to work in the county jail. Since then he has been back in a squad car, transporting prisoners, according to Sheriff Tim Gordon.

Because of the new DNR investigation, Haverkamp has again been reassigned in his duties to prisoner transport and corrections work at the jail, Gordon said Wednesday